“Book Review: Orfeo,” by Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Monthly, August 2015. “… although Time magazine has never announced him the Great American Novelist, he’s got a better claim to the title than any other writer in the country. When he dream-adapts some mythic source material, the result will always be worth intense scrutiny, even, Read More

“Dangerous Sounds,” review of Orfeo by Lara Buxbaum, Aerodrome, March 2015. The careful structuring of the novel shows Powers’s compositional genius…. My copy of the book is filled with post-it notes where I’ve marked lines which seemed to sing, awed by Powers’s mastery at the level of the sentence….

Orfeo is reviewed in Deccan Herald by Sundarshan Purohit, “A Life in Music,” February 1, 2015. Orfeo is a powerful, intricate story that plays out entirely through the mind of its lead character. As much as the story itself, the language and the vocabulary give it its distinctive flavour.

Review of Orfeo by Jennifer Melick, Opera News, Vol. 79, No. 4, October 2014. [Orfeo] wraps in several meta-themes — human miscommunication, connections between music and science, and the role of technology in modern life — that are hallmarks of Powers’s previous books. … Orfeo is a work of fiction, but it’s oddly timely and relevant.

“Finisterre,” review of Orfeo by Stephen J. Burn, American Book Review, Volume 35, Number 4, May/June 2014. Along the way there are plenty of signature Powers moments to enjoy: virtuoso reflections on music…, sudden parallactic jumps…, and a vertiginous shift in perspective at the novel’s end…. What’s remarkable about the music of a Powers novel is the, Read More

Orfeo is discussed, along with Us Conductors, in an article by Martha Anne Toll, “Two recent novels explore the subersive power of music,” Washington Independent Review of Books, October 7, 2014. In Orfeo, Powers employs historical reality as well. Every musical reference is real. … In addition to the novel’s deep dive through 20th-century classical composition, every page, every, Read More

“Review: Orfeo by Richard Powers,” by James Puntillo, The Paper St. Journal, September 13, 2014. What to say about Richard Powers‘s most recent conflagration of expertly researched plots other than, wow.

“Podcast: Man Booker Prize 2014 Longlist Part Two,” Rob Chilver and Kate Neilan discuss each book, based on excerpts they’ve read, on the program Adventures with Words, August 25, 2014. They discuss Orfeo, which they highly praised, starting at 21:55.